


Fluorescent Heart

by Cowboy_Sneep_Dip



Category: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bad Future Timeline (Fire Emblem), Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Regret
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-06-24 06:42:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19718287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cowboy_Sneep_Dip/pseuds/Cowboy_Sneep_Dip
Summary: Renais has fallen. Vigarde sits the throne, ruling Magvel with an iron fist. Eirika and her band of surviving companions huddle in the ruins of the world they once knew, waiting for the moment to strike back against Grado and its generals.After an impulsive move, Eirika finds herself face to face with a woman - an enemy - she had once known.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bhelryss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bhelryss/gifts).



> Can you BELIEVE there isn't an Eirika/Selena tag. Gotta do everything my damn self, huh.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

The wind is cold, and biting, and nips at her exposed skin like the teeth of some small, incessant beast. She pulls her hood tighter around her head. 

The wind has gotten worse since the trees started dying. Less foliage to block the swell of air from the coast, the frigid winds from the mountains up north. 

And now, winter comes. 

The cobblestone streets are packed shoulder to shoulder, starving supplicants pushing and shoving to catch a glimpse of her: The Fluorspar, the savior, astride her mount, clad in the raiment of her station.

Eirika rests her hand on the hilt of her sword, hidden beneath the grey-brown folds of her cloak. It is not Sieglinde: that had been lost in the Darkling Woods. It's even steel - it's crude pig-iron shaped roughly into a blade. Flashes of silver and steel are snatched up by soldiers. Iron doesn't gleam, least of all in the shadows of a cloak. 

She melds into the crowd, a shadow, a ghost. Snow flecks the folds of her garment, fluttering through the air in swirls and eddies, settling on the crowd gathering in the streets. 

Children watch from cracked windows, through holes in stone, in alleys beneath laundry stained brown and dripping. Their faces are gaunt, their eyes sunken and tired. 

The people starve, and Vigarde grows fat on his throne.

Eirika slips between an old couple inching closer. She spies a snatch of blonde, up above the crowd, and then green. 

The Fluorspar.

General Selena sits atop her horse against piled bags. She smiles, politely, and waves. She cannot unload her cargo in the streets, even as the people scrape and scrabble at her. She's destined for the mayor's manor, the same destination she finds herself at every month. Food, blankets, a cart piled high with provisions to help the people weather another winter. 

She has a tome in a holster slung low at her side, something with a yellowed cover and uneven pages. Eirika can't read the spine. 

She tightens her grip on her sword.

"Thank you, Dame Selena," cries a woman, clasping her hands in praise. "Thank you."

Eirika grits her teeth. 

This is not mercy nor kindness. These are crumbs tossed out on the people while the master sits his gilded throne, sipping wine and dispensing death. There would not be starvation if the people weren't ground under the bootheel of the empire at every turn.

Selena draws closer to the wrought-iron gates of the mayor's manor. Snow speckles her cloak and lights on her shoulders and her golden hair. 

When those gates shut, she is beyond Eirika. 

Eirika pushes forward with renewed fervor, shouldering past huddled forms in the crowd, her footsteps growing frantic against the stone. She pushes between a young couple, a man with disheveled hair and a woman in a tattered cloak, and she's there. 

The Fluorspar. At last. 

Eirika's bright hair is subdued by her dark hood, but she lunges forward, the wind brushing it back, the fabric spilling to her shoulders, her short teal hair shimmering in the grey morning light. She wraps her fingers around the hilt of her sword and draws-

Or, rather, she would if her hand was not clamped at her side by a strong, rough hand. She's yanked back into the crowd by the same hand, and her hood is pulled roughly back over her eyes. She struggles against it, but it's pointless - he's stronger than her, always has been. He's rough with her as he yanks her backwards through the crowd, cracking her joints, tugged along like a petulant child. 

-

"Fool," he says, pulling back his own hood and running a hand through a shock of red hair. 

"What the hell was that?!" Eirika snaps, slamming the door shut behind her and cutting out the howl of cold wind through barren streets.

"That was me saving you from getting gutted by the imperial guard." He turns away from her, too angry for words. 

"Seth!" Eirika shouts. "Look at me!" 

Seth whips around and stalks towards her, hissing. "Keep it down. Or do you want the whole town to know about your foolish little plot?" 

Eirika scowls, but she knows he's right. He’s always right. 

A pair of green eyes peep out from behind a corner. "Are you okay, Eirika?" 

Eirika runs her fingers through her hair, combing snow from the fringes. "Yeah. Yeah… Sorry, Vanessa. I know you were sleeping."

Vanessa creeps around the corner into the antechamber of their little hideout. It's a drafty disused stockroom, still piled with broken crates and cobwebs dusting the corners. A breeze cuts through holes in the stone wall, and snow piles up under the crack in the doorframe. 

Vanessa looks cold and tired. A worn blanket is pulled around her shoulders. She yawns. 

"Were you out hunting?" 

Eirika nods and Seth cuffs her lightly on the back of the head. 

She winces and shoves him off. "Is there any stew left from breakfast?" 

Vanessa nods and folds her arms over her stomach. She looks thin. "Yeah, a bit, but I think Colm is eating now, so go quick." 

"Thanks," Eirika brushes past Seth. He stops her and whispers in a harsh, quiet tone. 

"I watched your father die. I watched your brother be executed for the same foolishness you displayed this morning. I will not watch the blood of Renais end because of your pride." 

Eirika furrows her brow. 

-

The kitchen, as it were, is little more than a room with a small coal-fired stove pushed into the corner. Steam rises from it, and a pot sits bubbling and churning atop it. There are a few tables pushed against walls, with stools beside, and a man sits hunched over his lunch, scowling at the broth. 

"Deer stew?" Eirika asks. 

Colm laughs. "I wish. Amelia and I tried hunting earlier, but all we got was a few birds." 

Eirika grimaces at the bubbling stewpot. Her daily ration is one portion; a bowl of meat boiled white in scummy water, stirred in with mushrooms and pickled root vegetables. They had salt in the summer. Perhaps the Fluorspar had brought salt again. 

She sets her bowl at the place opposite Colm and sits heavily. This land was Renais, once, before the cold wind and the plague of terrors, before the people were huddled into frightened masses protected within the walls of villages by the governors, figureheads and puppets imposed upon them by Emperor Vigarde. No one had seen the mayor in two years - there was some doubt he existed at all. Or, as came to pass in some towns - he was long-dead and ruling still. 

Eirika stirs her stew with disinterest, watching steam curl in whisps from the scummy surface. 

The Fluorspar had looked at her as Seth pulled her back into the crowd. What was that expression that crossed her dark eyes? Recognition? Pity? Sadness? Regret? 

Did she even remember meeting Eirika, all those years ago? 

And hers was the hand that took Ephraim's life, that much was certain. Does she even know what she took from Eirika, or is it just the last in a long litany of sins? She was an instrument of the downfall of Magvel, and the poor fool didn't seem to have the good sense to know it. 

Eirika chews thoughtfully. 

-

It's cold. It's always cold here, now that the snows of Frelia have piled at Renais' feet. Kyle stokes a fire in the main room. Vanessa and Amelia share a cot in one corner, and Seth sits at the table, dozing into his tin cup of something bitter. 

Eirika slips out quietly, taking the back door. Her boots crunch softly on new-fallen snow. 

The forest is dark and bare, branches stripped clean and rustling like skeleton fingers prodding at her clothes. She had left her cloak hung on a hook by the front door, so her hair shimmers in the moonlight, unguarded.

Her sword is at her side. 

She knew Selena would be here. She rides into town like a folk hero, bearing her meager gifts, what help she can spare before slipping out in the darkness. The trail through the woods is littered with hoofprints. 

But Eirika is not beholden to trails. She vaults a log and scrambles up a snowbank, weaving between dead and dying trees. There's a scream in the distance, something unholy and howling. A terror, calling to its kin. 

It's dangerous to venture outside the town at night, doubly so for her. Even ordinary citizens can be jailed for breaking the curfew. 

She digs her cold fingers into a crack in a rock face and hauls herself up the side. She knows where the winding horse-trail leads. 

The moon shimmers above, a disc of white set into the inky sky. She crosses a field, wading through shin-deep snow, and huddles behind a rock. She cups her red hands over her mouth and exhales slowly, trying to warm herself. It's a waiting game, now. Waiting is something she can do. She did all this time, since Selena's last visit to the mayor. 

She wraps her arms around herself and rubs her frigid arms. Her sleeves are thin and worn, her royal raiment cast of in exchange for a traveler's rags. They had bartered the gold breastplate in Carcino, and her cape in Rausten. Food, medicine, supplies. Splints for bones, bandages and cloth for tears and bites. Things more important than royal clothing. Ephraim had not given up his armor, because, in his words, someone had to be able to fight back. 

Brave and reckless to the end. 

Eirika blows on her hands again and wishes she had at least taken Vanessa's blanket with her.

There's another howl, something more distant. They terrors are moving away from town. 

In the wind, she can hear hoofs beat against dirt. Slow, steady, quick but not frantic. Eirika scrambles around for her sword. The hootbeats draw closer, louder. 

She whirls like a storm, like an icy spirit, and hurls a rock with all the force she can muster. The stone collides with the rider, knocking her from her horse and sending the mount stumbling off down the trail, startled. The Fluorspar hits the bank beside the trail in a splash of flakes, and red soaks into the snow.

It's quiet again, save the sound of shuffling and a trail dragging through the snow. 


	2. Chapter 2

She’s heavier than Eirika had expected. Or maybe she’s just as heavy as she had expected - a frame thick with muscle, lean and strong and well-fed, filled out where Eirika is thin and bony. She hooks her chapped red hands into The Fluorspar’s boots and drags her through the snow, weakly, unceremoniously. 

No - not the Fluorspar. Without her horse, her armor, her tome, she is a woman. She is Selena, old and tired and weak. Bleeding from a split eyebrow. Red, just like everyone else. All the power of Grado and the stones useless - mortals are mortals, regardless. Eirika stops, resting the unconscious body on the roadside outside of town, wiping sweat from her brow and spittle from her lips.

She is driven by anger as much as grief. She can - and she will - visit upon Selena every inch of pain she had received, every torment and every tragedy since the fall of Renais. Selena had taken so much from her, and she has nothing to give but a single life, and Eirika will stretch that life long. 

Resistance has long been hopeless, but there is always a place to start - cracks in the armor, chips in the wall. Weak links. Women with soft hearts and a proclivity for visiting small rural villages, for example. Women who wear no helmets. 

Eirka pushes the door to their hideout open with her shoulder and she drags her cargo through.

Everyone is asleep at this time of night, even Seth, who has shifted into a pile of bones and thick clothing snoring in the corner. Vanessa and Amelia are huddled together under a moth-eaten blanket, Colm and Kyle each on independent cots pressed between piled crates.

Eirika sets to work quickly - she’s unsure how long Selena will remain unconscious and she suspects the snowmelt in her wet hair will drip down like a bucket of water against a sleeping farmhand. She drag’s Selena’s body into the back, into a nook behind the kitchen, where the stairs drop a half-level into an old cellar with barred windows pasted over with salvaged boards. She lights a candle on the cellar steps and kneels over Selena’s body, lifting her hands up and binding them together with a loop of iron through a torch sconce set into the wall. 

She binds her feet, too, for good measure, and she’s finishing her double-knots when Selena groans.

Eirika pulls back, holding her breath. 

Selena’s head droops, her chin against her sternum, and when her head lolls, she opens her mouth. Blood drips from between her lips and down her chin. She winces and looks up, at her arms bound over her head. If she wants to speak, she makes no effort to, choosing rather to drop her head back to her chest, strained and exhausted.

“Selena Fluorspar,” Eirika says quietly, lifting her candle from the stairs and holding it in front of Selena’s bruised face. Her cheek is marred dark blue, the rest raw and red from being dragged through the snow. Blood has frozen and dried brown on her beautiful, manicured eyebrow. “Ephraim sends his regards.”

“Eir...Eirika,” Selena breathes. She coughs and lurches, weakly straining her bonds. 

“Oh, good. You are awake,” Eirika says, tipping her chin up. “For a moment I had worried my rock had knocked your brain from your wicked skull.” She stares at Selena’s eyes - there’s no brightness there, no cleverness or love. None of the soft pity that she held in her heart as she rode past the starving townspeople. She lets her head drop again. 

She watches Selena’s pitiful, fragile form. Because she is pitiful in this state. Bound, bloodied. Breathing heavily. 

“Aren’t you going to ask me why?” Eirika asks.

Selena licks blood and spit from her lips. She doesn’t need to ask. “There is not a Magvellian alive I have not wronged.”

Eirika considers hitting her. It’s not supposed to be like this - she should be angry, indignant. But seeing Selena like this, she seems tired, empty. There is no glory in shattering a broken vase. 

There’s motion from the room up the cellar stairs, bodies roused to wakefulness at long last by the sounds of Eirika’s soft conversation, the flickering of orange candlelight in the dark.

Vanessa is first to the top of the stairs, bleary-eyed and half-undressed. “Eirika...wh...what’s happening?”

“Go back to bed, Vanessa,” Eirika says sternly. “This doesn’t concern you.”

“It concerns all of us,” Colm says over Vanessa’s shoulder. “Holy gods above, Eirika, what have you done?!”

Eirika can’t voice a protest before more shadows gather at the top of the stairs. She can see his red hair in the lamplight.

“Eirika.”

“Seth.”

Seth pushes Colm and Vanessa aside. “Vanessa, Colm, pack your things. Wake Kyle and Amelia. We must be ready to leave at dawn.” 

“Seth-” Vanessa’s voice is small, hesitant.

Eirika grinds her teeth together, watching the old knight walk down the stairs. Colm and Vanessa obey, vanishing from the doorway and into the darkness. 

“Do you realize what you’ve done?” Seth says calmly, looking over Selena’s bonds. Selena looks up at him, blood leaking from her pursed lips. “Vigarde’s retribution will be swift and merciless. The town will be put to the torch. At best.”

Eirika grabs him. “The people were dying - I couldn’t-”

“You couldn’t what?” Seth snaps, turning. “You couldn’t bear the thought of your brother’s killer walking free?” He stops to Eirika and presses a finger into her chest. “He is dead because of his foolish choices, and you seem determined to follow suit. I will protect you, milady, even if…” he swallows. “Even if you hate me for it.”

From between them on the floor, Selena laughs weakly. 

“You...you would command your prince, then?” she spits blood. 

“Shut up,” say Seth and Eirika simultaneously. 

“What was your plan?” Seth frowns. “Torture her? Kill her? Did you think at all past the impulse of revenge?”

“I…” Eirika stumbles. She hadn’t. Half of her had expected Selena to fight back, to kill her even. That it was so easy did bother her. “What would you have me do, then?”

“Free her,” Seth kneels over Selena and begins fumbling with the ropes that tie her wrists. “And pray to the gods that Vigarde will be merciful to the townspeople that have unknowingly harbored us.” 

Eirika pushes him aside. “No. She comes with us.”

“Then you condemn the people do death.”

“V-Vigarde doesn’t know I’m here,” Selena offers.

Eirika and Seth turn simultaneously, both looking down in shock. 

“He…” she coughs. “He doesn’t know I bring food to the townspeople.” She pauses to breathe heavily, hoarsely. “I left the capital under...under pr...pretenses of a mission to meet…” she winces. “To meet with the pegasus scouts.”

Seth and Eirika make eye contact.

“She comes with us, then,” Seth says quietly, turning and walking up the stairs. His bootsteps fade away into the dark. 

Eirika stares at Selena. In the candlelight her face seems gaunt, hollow. Eirika opens her mouth to speak, reconsiders. And then, finally - 

“Why?”

Selena looks up at her, tangled bloody bangs over her eyes. Gold stained copper.

Eirika kneels in front of her. “Why?” her voice is incredulous, bordering on hysterical. “Why would you tell us that?”

“It’s the truth.” Selena swallows.

Eirika can hear commotion above, packing, the rattle of iron, the fluttering of bedsheets and hushed, hasty voices. She kneels on the stone floor, looking up at Selena’s face. “I could kill you for what you’ve done.”

“You could.”

Eirika exhales. 

There is no point in pressing the issue. Selena is right - she could. Nothing is stopping her from slitting her throat, from crushing her windpipe with her hands, from leaving her tied up in this cellar and left to starve, slowly in the cold. And Eirika looks at Selena’s face and she thinks of her brother. His stern face, the shackles rubbing red blisters onto his wrists. Standing on a pedestal, before the onlooking crowd of Grado soldiers. Her sobbing cries, angry as Seth pulled her back, urging her - no, begging her not to look. 

And General Selena, atop the dais, a book open in her palms. She looked cleaner then, her hair brighter. The polished steel of her armor shining. She had read words slowly, solemnly, but Eirika heard nothing but the roar of blood in her ears. 

“I’ll be back to collect you before we depart,” Eirika gets to her feet. She stops at the stairs to pick up her candle, now burning thin with hot liquid wax pooling around the tray. 

“Eirika.”

Eirika stops but does not turn, letting Selena speak to her back.

“I’m...I’m sorry. About…” Selena winces again. “About your brother.” 

Eirika stares at the pooling wax. 

“I...I begged Vigarde to let him stay as...as p-prisoner. I did not want to hurt him.”

“But you did!” Eirika roars, angry. Her candle splashes to the ground and extinguishes, plunging them into darkness, and Eirika’s voice is fury without form. “You killed him! You killed so many for that man! How can you live with yourself?! How can you look yourself in the mirror knowing what you’ve done?!” 

Her voice echoes in the dark, angry, bouncing against Selena’s bowed head, her hatred and vitriol filling the dark until Vanessa comes down the stairs and takes Eirika’s arm, squeezing her hand, soothing reassurances on her lips. And Eirika’s anger burns out, with nothing left to consume. Vanessa walks her up the stairs, and Selena sits in the darkness.

The head of the Fluorspar hangs low, bloody and shadowed, invisible in the dark. The only light slips through cracks in the boarded windows. Selena can taste blood and dirt, and she closes her eyes.


End file.
